Blogger Week Post #2- Desserts

Happy Saturday! How was your day? My day was busy but very nice! Last night at the food store, they had no canned pumpkin! So I got up extra early this am to run to a second food store so I could start my baking! Unfortunately (believe it or not), the second store ALSO did not have pumpkin. I ran to Walmart where I was finally able to find some pumpkin. For my second set of blogger week recipes, I made desserts. The first dessert came from Cecil over at Food Craze. Cecil uses a lot of very unique ingredients in her cooking and I am always in awe of the masterpieces she creates! I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to make a pumpkiny dessert as my dad LOVES pumpkin. She posted up some pumpkin choco chip cupcakes that looked incredible! I decided to use her base recipe for my cupcakes (minus the choco chips ;)) and I topped them with a slightly lighter cream cheese frosting:

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs (I used egg substitute)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup low fat milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil (or you can use applesauce)

Mix dry ingredients in 1 bowl, wet ingredients in another, combine and then fill 12 muffin cups. Bake at 375 for 23ish minutes. Pictures:

For the icing, I cheated on my no outside recipe rules, and used a recipe from cooking light:

Ingredients:

2/3 cups light cream cheese (or 6 oz)

1 1/4 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

Place the cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl; beat at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar, beating just until blended. (Do not overbeat.) place the cream cheese and vanilla in a large bowl; beat at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar, beating just until blended. (Do not overbeat. Note: I did this with a whisk).

For my second dessert, I made an apple pie with oatmeal cookie crust. This recipe came from the Recipe Girl. I recently discovered her blog and love it because its full of dessert ideas. The outcome of this recipe is INCREDIBLE but I would recommend using unsalted butter in the crust rather than regular butter but otherwise its unbelievable (I also made a few other changes, please see the original)

Ingredients:

CRUST:
3 cups rolled (old fashioned) oats
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp (rounded measure) salt
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup + 2 T. brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), melted

FILLING:

7 cups peeled, sliced Granny Smith apples
3 Tbs fresh lemon juice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp grated lemon rind
3 Tbs unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup brown sugar (packed)
½ cup sour cream

Directions:

1. Prepare crust: Combine all crust ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, and mix well. Press firmly and evenly into the bottom and sides of a 9 or 10-inch pie pan, forming a thick crust. Reserve about a cup (or a little more) of the crust mix for the topping.
2. Preheat oven to 375°F.
3. Place sliced apples in a large bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with spices; toss until well coated. Add rind. Sprinkle in flour and mix again. Gradually add brown sugar and sour cream as you mix. Don't worry if the apple slices break a little while being mixed and tossed.
4. Distribute the filling into the unbaked crust. Sprinkle the reserved crust crumbs over the top and pat neatly into place.
5. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until the apples are soft and the crust is nicely browned on the edges. Note: If the top appears to be browning too quickly during baking, cover loosely with foil (check after about 30 minutes).
6. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature. This is doubly good with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Both desserts turned out great! Thanks ladies! You are the best! These desserts were taken over to my Aunt and Uncle's house for dinner tonight. My parents and grandmother were in the area, so we had a nice big dinner together up near Myrtle beach.

The men (from left to right- Josh, my dad, my Uncle Gary, my cousin)

The ladies (from left to right- my Aunt Lori, my Grandma, me, my mom):

I am so exhausted. Aside from the baking and dinner, I also went to the gym today and took body step and ran around town with my parents. It was so great to see everyone. What did you do today?